REVIEW: 'Star Trek Resurgence' Is An Immersive Video Game That 'Trek' Fans Will Love

Commander Rydek (Krizia Bajos) has some tough decisions to make in STAR TREK RESURGENCE. Image: Dramatic Labs.

MAY 25, 2023 - In 2004, a group of former LucasArts employees founded a new video game company called Telltale Games. Unfortunately, by 2018 the company was facing financial issues and reluctantly had to let 90% of its workforce go.

Rising out of those ashes like the proverbial phoenix came Dramatic Labs, created by more than 20 former Telltale employees. Their first game, which happens to be Star Trek-centric, was released this week. Is it any good? Should you gamers out there spend your hard-earned cash and your valuable time on it, or should you give it a miss? You’re in luck. Like a canary in a coal mine, I’ve boldly gone ahead and played it so I can let you know if it’s a worthwhile investment or a waste of time.

Telltale’s bread and butter has always been creating story-based games inspired by popular properties like Back to the Future, The Walking Dead, and Batman. Dramatic Labs continues that tradition with Star Trek Resurgence. In the game, you play as two characters: Commander Jara Rydek, Kobliad First Officer of the U.S.S. Resolute, and Engineering Crewperson Carter Diaz. It’s sort of an Upstairs, Downstairs situation as you watch events unfold from both the bridge and the lower decks.

In 2015, I was one of 10 people asked to Alpha Test a new mobile game called Star Trek Timelines. I went up to the Disruptor Beam headquarters near Boston where I was handed an iPad and asked to play an early version of the game while three members of the development team watched me and asked questions about my thought processes. One of the things they noticed was that I read every word that appeared on the screen. They found it interesting that I was so invested in the story. Until then, I had just assumed everyone who played games would be. Perhaps it’s because I’m a writer and a theater professional that I find the story elements of games so important and feel a need to absorb every word.

Resurgence, then, is perfect for me. The idea is to immerse the player in the story, making them feel like they are a part of the game’s world. From the moment the game began, I got a thrill as I watched a shuttlecraft traveling through space. The colorful art style gives the game a comic-book feel and the voice acting is excellent.

Once the credits have finished (ending with the legend, “Based upon Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry,” which immediately made it feel like a canon Trek property) we meet Rydek, in the shuttle with an ensign, both on their way to their new commission on the Resolute. The early scenes act as a training mission (every video game necessarily has one) where you not only learn the rules of the game but also a little bit about the character you control.

The gameplay is unique in that you’re essentially watching a new Star Trek adventure wherein you are tasked with making key decisions. As Rydek, do you respond to the characters around you with humility or with snark? As Diaz, do you go through the hatchway first or make way for your crewmate instead? Every decision has consequences that the other characters in the game remember, with the potential of changing how the story plays out.

Not every character will be happy with your decisions and, as in real life, you can’t please everyone all the time. One great example occurs early in the game. When the story begins the Resolute has recently lost several crew members to an accident. While on the bridge, Commander Rydek must make a choice between following her captain’s orders, which will result in the loss of two crew members, or disobeying them, possibly losing many more on a nearby space station. If you, as Rydek, decide to follow the captain’s orders, you risk alienating the crew. If you choose to disobey orders, the captain will be in a snit. What’s more, every character will remember your choice and it will affect how they react to you going forward.

It’s a brilliant and effective way to make the player feel like they are actually a part of the story and not simply playing through it. They need to decide what kind of officer they want to be and who they wish to endear themselves to. As Rydek, I chose to save the two crew members rather than follow the captain’s orders, which pissed him off but made the crew like me more. As Diaz, I chose to go into the hatch first, causing my crewmate to suffer injuries. Needless to say, she was a little miffed.

Adding to the tension, your decisions are timed. If you take too long to hit a button, the game makes one for you. Theoretically, once the game begins you could set down the controller and watch it like a movie, albeit with large gaps of time being eaten away while the game waits for your decision. But where’s the fun in that? I already find the pacing in games like this to be a little off, reminding me they’re not films. That’s not a criticism. In fact, I found Resurgence to have better pacing than other games of this kind I’ve played.

The voice acting is stellar, too. Rydek, voiced by Krizia Bajos, and Diaz, voiced by Josh Keaton, were both very believable in their roles. Their voices helped me get into character. Early in the game, Ambassador Spock shows up, kicking off a diplomatic mission, and Piotr Michael’s vocal timbre as the beloved canon character is almost perfect, making one for a brief moment wonder if Leonard Nimoy himself recorded the lines before his passing. Captain William Riker’s voice artist is even more perfect since the actor voicing the role is none other than Jonathan Frakes, who has been playing it off-and-on for 35 years.

The bottom line is if you’re looking for an action-oriented video game with lots of wham-bams and pew-pews, look somewhere else. But if you want to immerse yourself in an original Star Trek story and make the tough decisions Starfleet officers must make every day, meet Spock and Riker, and try your hand at diplomacy, Star Trek Resurgence is for you. Warp on over to Dramatic Labs’ website and order it for your Playstation, Xbox, or PC now.